Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program (HEGS)

The Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program (HEGS) supports basic scientific research about the nature, causes, consequences, or evolution of the spatial dimensions of human behaviors, activities, and dynamics as well as their interactions with environmental and social processes across a range of scales. The program welcomes proposals for empirically grounded, theoretically engaged, methodologically rigorous, and generalizable research that advances geographical and geospatial sciences. HEGS supports multiple proposal types including senior research proposals, Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) proposals, Research Coordination Networks (RCN), conference proposals, and Transdisciplinary REsearch in Environmental Social Science (TREES) proposals. Successful proposals should describe clear plans for data collection, justification for proposed methods, plans for data analysis, attention to confounding variables, and efforts to address biases. The program emphasizes research that will enhance, expand, and transform fundamental geographical theory and geospatial methods while delivering broader impacts that benefit society.